Beautiful People (1)

Beautiful People is a feature hosted by Paper Fury that lets people really delve into their characters. As a mainly book-related blog, I thought this would be a nice way for me to expand myself, to do more than reviews, Top Ten Tuesdays, and discussions. If you’re only interested in learning more about characters who are in books that are actually finished and published/will be published soon, feel free to skip this post, but since I love hearing about aspiring authors’ stories and characters, I hope that I’m not the only one!

This month’s topic is siblings, in honor of National Sibling Day, which was April 10th, apparently, so you get to see some of the interesting sibling relationships in some of my stories! Yes, that’s right, I’m highlighting multiple stories because I can – and answering questions helps me get a better handle on my characters, so the reasoning is quite selfish on my part.

This story is about twin sisters, Layla and Lanae; each chapter is split into two parts, with each narrating in third person. They’re best friends, but they’re also very different people, and one sister in particular, Layla, is very power-hungry, which definitely affects their relationship.

1. What is the first memory they have of each other?
Both girls have magickal powers (yes, it’s a paranormal story, and yes, I long ago decided to add a “k” to the end of the word for basically no reason), so their earliest shared memory is of playing together in the backyard and using their powers – Lanae used her telekinetic abilities to make flower petals dance around them, while Layla transformed some of the petals into full flowers using her abilities of manipulation.

2. Describe their relationship in 3 words.
Twins, difficult, strong.

3. What kind of things do they like to do together?
They don’t do much together; they have their own set of friends, and though they’re all friendly and often eat lunch together and such, they mostly hang out in their own groups. The only time they’re truly together and alone is when they’re in the dorm room they share (they attend a magickal boarding school, because obviously we don’t have enough of those), but they both want to change that.

4. What was their biggest fight?
They bicker and play-fight with each other a lot, but they’ve never had a huge blow-out – that’ll happen sometime during the story, probably in a future book as they deal with Layla’s power-hungry personality and Lanae’s fear of power and what it can do to her sister.

5. How far would they go to save each other?
Anywhere. They really do love each other, but their love comes out more when one twin is distressed or in danger. Even Layla would choose her sister over power, although she doesn’t know that until she’s actually tested.

6. What are their pet peeves about each other?
Layla was ecstatic to get away from home and learn more about her powers, but Lanae is certainly homesick, which bugs Layla a lot. Lanae likes to draw, paint, and sketch many things from back home, like their mother, which can get on Layla’s nerves because she just wants to move on and thinks that Lanae is wallowing. Lanae, meanwhile, hates the fact that things come very easily to Layla – she can use her power of manipulation to manipulate or transform things, and one of her favorite tricks is manipulating her homework to finish on its own – Lanae would accuse her sister of cheating, but it’s merely taking knowledge she already knows and transferring it on paper, so it’s not technically cheating and is simply a sign of Layla’s high intelligence.

7. What are their favorite things about each other?
Layla loves how kind her sister is, even if she sometimes uses it to her advantage. Lanae loves how loyal her sister is, which is why she worries about losing her sister and that fierce loyalty for a while.

8. What traits do they share? Mannerisms, clothing, quirks, looks, etc?
They’re identical twins, but that’s about it. Lanae tends to wear vintage and secondhand clothes, all colorful and bright. She might borrow some of Layla’s things sometimes to offset all the colors, since Layla tends to favor darker colors and jeans or skirts, while Lanae has a lot of dresses in her wardrobe. Lanae doesn’t wear much, if any, makeup, but Layla loves wearing colorful makeup, especially eyeshadow and nail polish. Layla has trouble sitting still and doing nothing while Lanae is good at remaining motionless and statue-esque. Layla is much more sarcastic and dry, but Lanae can be just as funny in her head – she isn’t as confident as Layla, though, so most of her little comments remain in her head or are only said around Layla.

9. Who has the strongest personality?
Layla. She’s louder, more confident, snarkier, and more willing to do just about anything to get what she wants.

10. How does their relationship change throughout your story?
They start out in a bit of a rocky space – Lanae is worried that her sister is drifting away and getting too power-hungry, while Layla is too concerned with building her powers to pay too much attention to her sister. They start to come back together during the course of the story.

There are many siblings – and really, many characters – in this story, but I’m focusing on two characters named April and Summer (they have a cousin named Autumn – do you see a bit of a pattern with their names?). Along with their cousin, they get transported to another world where they have to find the titular emerald gemstone to get back home. There is way more to the story than that, but that’s a very brief summary.

1. What is the first memory they have of each other?
April vaguely remembers her mother bringing Summer back home – soon after April was born, her mother left her with her grandparents and disappeared (due to postpartum depression, but April and Summer didn’t know that) and finally came back with a new daughter whose father is kept secret (April’s own father died just before she was born). Summer, meanwhile, remembers her sister bossing her around and being both jealous and in awe of her.

2. Describe their relationship in 3 words.
Jealousy, distant, strong

3. What kind of things do they like to do together?
The girls don’t do much together anymore. April is one year and two grades older than Summer, and while both girls are popular in their respective crowds, it came much easier to April while Summer works hard to maintain her popularity. The fact that they had mostly drifted apart, as well as Summer’s feud with her cousin, was the reason the girls are forced to go on vacation together and end up stumbling upon this new world.

4. What was their biggest fight?
They’ve had some big ones, but the biggest one was when April accused Summer of being cruel after endless pranks and jokes made at their cousin’s expense. Summer never really forgave April – mostly because she knew that she was right and that Summer was losing herself to popularity and such.

5. How far would they go to save each other?
At the beginning, they’ll protect each other, but more out of familial obligation, but by the end of the series (which is currently four books), they’d do anything.

6. What are their pet peeves about each other?
April thinks that Summer is shallow (she isn’t really, though), while Summer hates the fact that popularity and friends come so easily to April.

7. What are their favorite things about each other?
Summer truly admires April’s confidence, no matter how jealous it makes her, while April slowly begins to appreciate Summer’s hidden depth, like her love of photography and aesthetic (which she hides before the events of the story).

8. What traits do they share? Mannerisms, clothing, quirks, looks, etc?
April has the family curly, red hair and is a little short (around 5’4), while Summer has golden blond hair and is taller. April has little patience and always says what’s on her mind, while Summer is a lot more calculated and thus tends to be quieter and plans out what she’s going to say before she actually speaks. They both wear similar clothes, although Summer tends to spend more money on her clothes to keep up appearances while April is less likely to wear skirts and dresses (although she does wear them whenever she feels like it).

9. Who has the strongest personality?
April

10. How does their relationship change throughout your story?
April begins to realize that there’s a lot more to her sister than she ever realized, while Summer begins to deal with her jealousy problems.

This is a brother-sister pair of siblings. Lacey and Kyle are twins (practically every story I write has twins – I just like writing that and I don’t really know why) whose suddenly-mute cousin comes to live with them and ends up showing them a whole new world (literally – I write a lot of paranormal and fantasy stories, despite my preference of reading contemporary).

1. What is the first memory they have of each other?
They have the same memory, but different perspectives – Lacey remembers her brother popping off the heads of her Barbie dolls while Kyle remembers her throwing a tantrum and tattling on him.

3. What kind of things do they like to do together?
Pretty much nothing.

4. What was their biggest fight?
They fight all the time, but they’ve never really had a huge fight – they mostly leave each other alone.

5. How far would they go to save each other?
At the beginning, they probably wouldn’t expend a lot of energy to save each other, but like the rest of these relationships, they would fight for each other as the story goes on.

6. What are their pet peeves about each other?
Can I say everything? Lacey hates the fact the fact that Kyle is so sarcastic and hates doing what he’s told and is really smart without trying too hard, while Kyle hates the fact that Lacey does everything their extremely conservative and strict parents tell her to do and the way she obsesses over school and such.

7. What are their favorite things about each other?
Lacey is sometimes jealous of the way Kyle stands up to their parents about their unrealistic expectations, while Kyle definitely likes that fact that Lacey’s best friend, Kat, is always hanging around.

8. What traits do they share? Mannerisms, clothing, quirks, looks, etc?
They aren’t identical at all – Lacey is blond and sort of small, while Kyle has brown hair and is a bit gangly, slowly growing into his body. Lacey is extremely uptight and anxious, while Kyle is much more laid-back and loves to joke around.

9. Who has the strongest personality?
They both have strong personalities, but they tend to oppose each other – Lacey is very tightly wound and always stressing about something, while Kyle is always trying to turn everything into a sarcastic joke.

10. How does their relationship change throughout your story?
They slowly begin to appreciate each other and Kyle especially helps his sister to stop being so stressed out, while Lacey helps him take things a little more seriously (but only a little).

Well, that was long but quite enlightening, at least for me! Hope you enjoyed it, and if not… well, I have nothing to offer you instead, so I guess all I can say is “sorry, but not really that sorry.”

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Welcome to The Reading Shelf! I’m Genevieve, a mainly-YA reader who spends too much time on the computer and reads or writes when I’m not doing that. This is a blog with reviews, recaps, and other book-related posts. Feel free to leave comments and feedback, but please be polite!

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